Pop-Up Headlights: Where Did They Go?

Dead-End Technology.

As the automobile has evolved, certain technological advances that were heralded as marvelous innovations have nevertheless died out for reasons of changing styles and tastes, high costs, new regulations, or a general lack of interest. In hindsight, we have to wonder what appeal many of these dead-end features had in the first place. Here’s one of them:

Introduced on the 1936 Cord 810, pop-up—or hidden—headlamps were a clever and fashionable way to streamline and hide the gawky round headlamps of the period. But it wasn’t until the ’60s and ’70s that pop-up headlights hit their stride. At the time, U.S. regulations dictated either round or rectangular sealed-beam headlights. Neither choice was particularly satisfying to car designers, so they began to hide the lights behind garage-door-like devices. Or if they wanted a low hoodline or doorstop-like styling, they’d make the lights rise out of the hood. In the ’80s, the Japanese jumped into the deep end of the pop-up-headlight pool, and the results were wedge-like cars with daringly low hoodlines, such as the 1988 Honda Accord.

With time, the motors and electrical equipment of pop-ups inevitably failed. An epidemic ensued of winking cars (one side open, the other closed) and cars with headlights perpetually popped open. Eventually, the regulations surrounding headlights loosened, and instead of hiding them, carmakers began to use them as a significant design element. By the late ’90s, the pop-up headlight had left the mainstream and became the sole custody of the sports car, dying out in 2004 with the Lotus Esprit V-8 and the Chevrolet Corvette. The lights are likely to stay dead, as Europe’s stringent pedestrian-impact regulations make it difficult, costly, and impractical to develop a compliant pop-up headlight.